Deadly force against black youth is justified through their depiction as monsters

Evidence

But race was everywhere in this confrontation and in the trial. We heard it in Martin’s description of Zimmerman as “a creepy-ass cracker.” We saw it in Zimmerman’s suspicion of Martin. We heard it in the testimony of Rachel Jeantel, the last person to talk with Martin before his death, whose speech patterns and combative style on the witness stand set off a firestorm in the press and on social media. Or when defense attorney Mark O’Mara brought out a slab of concrete and claimed that it was a deadly weapon because Martin could have bashed Zimmerman’s head into it. Trayvon was akin to the brute beast that Darren Wilson saw in Michael Brown. He was, in effect, the monster that our history had made him to be. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 220

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the value gap theme threaded through earlier chapters—the monster image is what licenses differential valuation of black lives.